Critical Essay: How does Golding illustrate his ideas about Piggy, and convey the meaning of what he represents in Lord of the Flies? In "Lord of the Flies," William Golding uses symbolism to effectively convey meaning through Piggy’s character. Piggy represents intelligence, and civilization amongst the chaos and savagery that develops on the island. Piggy is an outsider. His appearance makes him comical to the other boys. He’s fat and clumsy, has asthma, and wears glasses. He’s also not as well-spoken as the others, and doesn’t really have any sense of humor. Interestingly, Piggy’s name represents his status as a victim, as pigs are to be hunted for and killed. He respects the rules of the island very much, he only speaks when he has the conch, and he is very anxious to protect the rules. It is noticeable that he gets upset when the other boys don’t follow him, calling them a “pack of kids”. …show more content…
I wasn’t allowed to do that. My asthma – “It’s my asthma”. Through Piggy’s voice, it provides a vivid description of Piggy’s clumsy motion when he isn’t even swimming; and it denotes that he relies heavily on the benefit of others protecting him, as he lacks basic survival skills. This foreshadows that in later encounters with events like this, Piggy is incapable of surviving alone, and could mean that his fate depends on others’ willingness to help or save him. Piggy then mumbles, as he suddenly flushed “My dad’s dead”, “and my mum-“ Fascinatingly, the employment of aposiopesis suggests that his mum also met a tragic fate. Through this, it explicitly exemplifies Piggy’s unfortunate background, which could suggest why no one managed to teach him any survival